3Doodler v1 – the world’s first 3D printing pen: don’t buy it

Hello!

3Doodler is the world’s first 3D printing pen, crowdfunded through their Kickstarter campaign back in 2013 by more than 26 thousand backers who have pledged total of $2.3 million to help bring the project to life.

Being the first 3D printing pen, it got popular very fast to the point that even now the words “3D printing pen” associate with “3Doodler”.

The pen is still being sold alongside with its newer version, 3Doodler 2.0, but, although it deserves some attention for being the first thing of the kind in the world, there’s no way I’d recommend anyone buying this particular model now, after so much time has passed. It definitely can’t compete with the modern 3D printing pens. There are quite a lot of negative buyer feedbacks claiming the pan did not function out of the box or stopped functioning after a short period of usage. Furthermore, many of those people complained about the lack of proper customer service, and if you visit the page of their initial crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter, you’ll find hundreds of comments along the lines of “I’ve backed your project 18 months back and still received nothing, a year after I was scheduled to receive my 3Doodler”. Apparently, the product wasn’t quite baked yet when they hastened to release it and they weren’t ready or organized or willing to cope with all the responsibilities that they found themselves facing after their tremendous success on Kickstarter. Well, that’s one of the drawbacks and risks of crowdfunding. Still, the fact that they went on with the second version seemingly without fulfilling all the duties towards their backers speaks volumes.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this post. If you have any questions, suggestions or comments, let me know in the comments section.